


close contact

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, giles is touch starved: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27814096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: Jenny laughs in a faculty meeting and leans towards him, her fingers brushing briefly and casually against his wrist – possessive in a way that’s all but tender, as though she wants the whole world to know he’s hers and he’s precious.
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 16
Kudos: 47





	close contact

**Author's Note:**

> i would give anything to have consistent writing motivation and yet sometimes my brain just goes "but touch starved giles tho" and then i spend all night writing stuff.

It’s such a small thing, when it happens. They’re walking to the restaurant – a cozy little Italian place on the outskirts of town, far enough away from supernatural activity that the usual nonsense doesn’t have a _chance_ of interrupting their date – when Jenny’s fingers brush almost shyly against his. Giles sneaks a furtive look in her direction, and when he does, she takes his hand, twining their fingers together with a small, self-satisfied smile.

Suddenly, Giles isn’t really paying attention to the usual rhythm of their playful flirtation. He tries to think back to the last time that someone held his hand like this, and can’t. Ethan – but no, they were never the type to hold hands, and after Ethan everything was casual and emotionless anyway. Perhaps Marcia, or Stephen, maybe Olivia – but Marcia only went out on a handful of dates with him, Stephen even less than that, and Olivia’s only ever called him up to exercise the benefits of their friends-with-benefits arrangement.

This is his second date with Jenny Calendar. Generally speaking, the people he goes out with don’t lace their fingers with his two dates in, and he hadn’t at all expected it from someone as cool and dispassionate as Jenny. Oh, she’s warm in her own way, but he’s always gotten the sense that she holds him at a deliberate distance – it’s what endeared him to her in the first place. It’s easier for a Watcher to have dalliances when they’re doomed to fail for reasons outside of sacred duty.

Jenny’s shoulder bumps against his as they walk. She’s wearing a plum-colored jacket that nicely matches her eyeshadow, and her red lipstick has a purplish tint to it that shows up nicely in the streetlights. She looks up at him and smiles, as though they’re just two blissfully mundane Sunnydale residents out for a spot of Italian, and her thumb strokes the side of his hand in a way that’s unconsciously, uncharacteristically affectionate.

It occurs to Giles that Jenny is the kind of person who would likely be able to figure out that he hasn’t held hands with anyone in a very long time – but he knew _that_ already. What he hadn’t been expecting was for Jenny to be the kind of person who would want to change that for him. He doesn’t think he’s _ever_ met anyone who has.

He doesn’t entirely know what to say to that.

Jenny tugs on his hand, stopping him under a streetlight. The glow seems to catch in her hair and her eyes, illuminating her in a way that reminds Giles a bit of the Shard of Stronnos. The significance of the moment eludes him now, but just like when he was a small boy standing at the bottom of the stairs, he feels like this is some kind of turning point in his life.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she says.

For the first time in his life, the honest truth spills out. “I’m terrified by how much I enjoy your company,” says Giles, and the moment after he says it, he almost wants to snatch it back.

A pink flush dusts Jenny’s cheeks. Her eyes drop for a moment – and then they meet his again. “Huh,” she says. “Me too.”

* * *

Giles drags his feet when it comes to intimacy with Jenny. She seems to assume that it’s because he’s an old-fashioned gentleman, but he doesn’t know how to explain to her that the slightest touch from her makes him acutely aware of the fact that he has never been touched with such tenderness before. The person who came the closest was Ethan, but blood and rage and magicks were too prevalent for them to touch _anything_ gently, let alone each other. They might have worked towards it before Randall, but – well. It’s been a long time since Giles has let anyone as close as he let Ethan.

(He’s beginning to wonder if he ever even let Ethan very close at all.)

But Jenny – Jenny settles her head against his chest when they’re watching late-night TV at his house. Jenny drapes her arms around his stomach from behind when he’s looking for a book in the library. Jenny laughs in a faculty meeting and leans towards him, her fingers brushing briefly and casually against his wrist – possessive in a way that’s all but tender, as though she wants the whole world to know he’s hers and he’s precious. She can be all elbows, sometimes, when she tries to pull him in for a casual hug – but her smile is so gentle and her eyes are so bright when she looks at him. No one has ever looked at him like that.

“Hey,” says Jenny, and slips her fingers under his sleeve to tug playfully at the fabric. “I’m gonna order Chinese tonight and watch _Heathers._ You in?”

It takes Giles five stunned blinks to get past _Jenny is touching me._ “Ah – what?” he says.

Jenny smiles. A _real_ smile. It’s taken Giles three months to learn that Jenny’s _real_ smile isn’t the bright, combative thing she brings out in the school hallways or when she’s just made a particularly good point in an argument. Jenny Calendar smiles in a way that spreads slowly across her face before rapidly retreating, as though she’s only just noticed that she’s actually happy. She has only ever smiled like this at him. “You really have to get used to me touching you, Rupert,” she says. “How is this relationship supposed to progress if you stop paying attention to me as soon as I kiss you?”

“I would argue that I’m paying attention to the _most_ important aspect of the situation,” Giles counters.

Jenny arches an eyebrow. “So what, you’re just using me for my body?”

“N-no! That’s—” Flustered, Giles fumbles for words before realizing with some exasperation that Jenny’s extremely delighted grin has returned. He _does_ wish she’d smile at things that aren’t him putting his foot in his mouth, particularly since he really _would_ do anything to see her face light up. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he says. “You know, I do sometimes miss when you were just an exasperating coworker. You hold a _terrifying_ amount of power over me, Jenny. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Mm hmm,” says Jenny, and drapes her arms around his neck. Giles smiles somewhat fatuously down at her. “So. _Heathers?”_

“Is that the one with Winona Ryder?”

Jenny snickers. “You have a type, huh?”

“She reminds me a bit of you,” says Giles, who thinks that this should be fairly obvious. “Though I will say I’m more familiar with her work in _Little Women—”_

“God, of _course_ you are,” says Jenny, tipping her head forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder. There’s an adoring laugh in her voice that wouldn’t have been there a week or two ago. “But you definitely have to watch _Heathers_ with me. It’s my favorite sick-day movie.”

“You watch a movie about high school murders on your _off days?”_ says Giles disbelievingly. “You do know you could just _come here_ for that sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Don’t ruin the mood,” says Jenny into his jacket. Giles rolls his eyes a little and tugs her closer.

* * *

“Does this count as our third date?” Jenny asks idly on the Night of Saint Vigeous. They’re walking hand in hand down the street, his jacket draped snugly over her shoulders. It emphasizes her smallness in comparison to him in a way that makes Giles’s chest somewhat tight. He is perpetually afraid that something in this terrible town will ruin the first good thing he has ever had.

“I really don’t want it to,” says Giles exhaustedly. “That would make it a two-to-one ratio of our dates ending in property damage and the police department showing up to usher injured parties safely out of Sunnydale High.”

“That taken into account,” says Jenny, “would you think that I’m a total slut if I said I’d like to have sex with you tonight?”

Giles trips on absolutely nothing and falls directly into a telephone pole. Jenny lets go of his hand because she’s laughing so hard at him that she can barely stand. He supposes he’d find the whole thing extremely funny too if he wasn’t having heart palpitations. “Don’t _do_ that!” he says indignantly.

“You spook worse than a baby horse!” Jenny wheezes. She’s slid gracelessly down to sit on the sidewalk, mopping at her eyes with the sleeve of Giles’s jacket. “Am I _that_ unappealing to you?”

“You are _deliberately_ trying to provoke me at this point,” Giles accuses, sitting down next to her. They are fully blocking the sidewalk, but the only people out at this hour aren’t people at all, and he has a stake in his jacket for that exact reason.

“Guilty,” Jenny agrees, turning to smile at him. Her eyes are still a bit wet from tears of laughter.

Without really thinking about it, Giles raises a hand to her face, wiping a stray tear away with his thumb. Jenny’s easy smile freezes, and her face suddenly looks very soft and open. He keeps his hand there, and she turns towards his palm very, very, slowly, almost as though no one has ever—

_Oh._

“Jenny,” says Giles. She turns her head back towards him. “This isn’t just a handful of casual dates, is it?”

Jenny draws in a sharp breath and kisses him very clumsily. It doesn’t escape Giles’s notice that this is a particularly effective way of changing the subject. When she pulls back, she says a little shakily, “Rupert, _do_ you want to have sex with me tonight?”

Giles has fallen in love only once before this. The first time it happened, he wasn’t truly able to recognize what he was feeling until he was in it – but this time he knows the signs well enough to know what he’s stumbling into.

“Yes,” he says.

* * *

He’d expected – he wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He hadn’t really thought very far past the way it felt when Jenny’s fingertips brushed against his skin, which does seem a bit ridiculous and antiquated when he examines it now. Jenny would likely have something pertinent to say about him idealizing her as a perfect heteronormative life partner – she has quite a few articles on feminist theory that she’s pushed him towards reading, never mind that he reads plenty of feminist theory on his own time anyway, thank you very much – but really it’s just that he’s never _met_ someone who’s lingered long enough in his life for casual touches, fingers lacing late at night, cheek against his shoulder and arms around his waist and _here,_ now, hands pressed flat against his chest as she adjusts herself above him, eyes bright and wet—

He reaches up to stroke her cheek, again, and she turns her head with an almost violent speed to press a fierce kiss to his palm. There’s something almost _angry_ about the way Jenny reacts to his moments of unguarded tenderness towards her, though she’s liberal with her own affections towards him. And then she drapes her arms around his shoulders again, pulling him in close, and Giles is too lost in sensation to lose himself in thought.

* * *

After, Jenny says, “So if that _was_ our third date—”

“I didn’t think you were so concerned with societal expectations regarding female modesty and appropriately timed abstinence,” says Giles.

“I assumed _you_ would be,” Jenny counters, rolling over onto her side and draping an arm across his chest.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Giles. “You wouldn’t give me the time of day if I _really_ cared whether or not we waited till the third date before—”

“You were taking your damn time to _get_ us here, I’d say it was a reasonable assumption—”

“I like things a bit slower than I think you’re used to,” says Giles.

Jenny stiffens. “And what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

The warm comfort of sex with someone that Giles – loves, is falling in love with, he isn’t quite sure yet – has relaxed him enough that his panic doesn’t rise to the bait. “I only mean – there’s a bit more to this for me than just sex with you.” He hesitates, unsure how to articulate his point. “Have you been in love before?” he asks.

Jenny has gone positively rigid. Her voice is a little brittle when she laughs, “Rupert, you’re not gonna _seriously_ tell me you love me after the first time we’ve had sex?”

“That’s not what this is about,” says Giles, alarmed by the assumption. “I’m simply asking—”

“It’s a pretty personal question.”

The ice in Jenny’s voice illuminates how poorly Giles has gone about phrasing his half-formed thought. “My apologies,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to offend you or make you nervous. If it helps you at all to hear, I—”

“No.”

“What?”

Jenny swallows, moving to lie on her back. She’s crossed her arms, hugging her elbows as she stares at the ceiling. “I haven’t been in love before,” she says. “Not – really.”

Giles doesn’t say anything. He gets the sense that this isn’t something Jenny has ever told anyone before.

“You’re right, you know,” says Jenny. “I don’t like things slow. I guess I just didn’t like hearing it.” She lets out an unsteady breath. “Sometimes I don’t like a lot of the stuff you say – not because it’s wrong, or unfair, just because you’re right about a lot of things and it’s fucking intolerable.”

Giles can’t help but laugh – quietly – at that. “You’re right about things too, you know,” he begins.

“No, don’t – don’t placate me, that’s not what this is about.” Jenny’s hand reaches out for his, holding tight. She’s still looking at the ceiling. “I don’t like being close to people,” she says, “and it – it really fucking unnerves me that you’re easy to be close to. You know?”

“Yes,” says Giles. His throat is tight.

Jenny rolls over onto her side again, snuggling back into his arms. She tilts her head up to look at him.

“What I was _trying_ to say is that nobody’s taken the time to be with me before you,” says Giles. “Certainly not hold my hand, or, or touch me.”

Jenny’s face tightens, her hand reaching up to stroke his cheek. “You must have been so lonely,” she says.

The loneliness feels like a distant mirage in the face of a terrifying and wonderful conversation like this. Giles dips his head down to rest his forehead against hers, watching her eyes flutter shut, and then presses a kiss to her nose. She smiles – that gorgeous, nervous, genuine smile of hers – and settles fully into his arms.

* * *

Giles makes Jenny eggs over hard the next morning. She winds her arms around his stomach, resting her chin on his shoulder, and says, “You’re cooking them too long.”

“They’re _over hard,_ ” says Giles. “They’re supposed to take time.”

Jenny kisses him on the cheek. Usually she lets go at this point – off to make herself coffee, or jot down an idea she’s had for class, or hurry over to her computer and work on some bone-casting before breakfast – but she stays with her arms around him until the eggs are done.

“I don’t know,” she says awkwardly in December, after Giles’s world has been upended by his past but before Jenny’s world has been upended by their present. “I just kept thinking – you’ve been a Watcher for your whole life, right? And you’re in your early forties. I can’t exactly imagine there being a lot of time for somebody to hold you while you make breakfast. I wanted to give you that.”

“Hmm,” says Giles, his heart flipping over, and thinks: _I hope the world is kind enough to give us more moments like that one._


End file.
